Chapter XIV.

NOBODY will be surprised when I say, that, after this, things got into their usual way very soon, and that when the event was over, everything subsided round it, and soon Aunt Milly began to forget that I was the invalid (in spirit) whom she had taken such tender care of, and brought back all her budget of perplexities and troubles to pour them into my ear; and after a day or two’s retirement in my own room, which was an ease to me, I went downstairs and about, and took a share in everything. Miss Mortimer had got better of her illness, if illness it was. She sat within the screen as usual, doing her knitting, and not taking much notice of anybody. I don’t know whether she had really suffered in her health, but it seemed to me that she got thinner, and that sometimes there was a gleam of fiery restrained excitement in her eyes, which were rather cold eyes by nature. We were told that she still had very bad nights; and I am sure, two or three times when I met poor Carson by accident, it took all my self-control to keep me from speaking to her, and begging her to deliver herself, somehow, from this dreadful yoke. I never saw exhaustion and a kind of weak despair so written upon anybody’s face. These bad nights, whatever they might be to the mistress, must have been murderous work to the poor maid.

“My dear,” said Aunt Milly, “I shall never forget that young man’s look as he put me into the carriage, and kissed my hand.” Aunt Milly held out her plump soft hand as she spoke, and looked at it. “They have a habit of doing so, these Italians. But if you will believe me, Milly, it was actually an affectionate look the poor young fellow gave me; and I have never asked you what he meant; he was your brother, he said. My dear, what did he mean? Ah, I remember how disappointed I was to find that he was not your brother, and Richard Mortimer’s son. That would have been such a happy solution of everything! but tell me why he called himself your brother? Was it only sympathy, Milly?”

“He said we were of the same blood; he said we were relations,” said I, with some hesitation.{328}

The book she had been reading fell out of Aunt Milly’s hand. “Relations!” she cried, faltering and growing pale; “then, Milly, there can be no doubt at all about it. Milly, I tell you he must be my father’s son; how could you be relations? And indeed, indeed,” cried Aunt Milly, growing more and more agitated, “I can’t bear this any longer. Now you are with me to support me, I must take it into my own hands. I will go and write to him this moment, and ask him down here to clear it all up. Don’t say anything—I must do it; it is impossible to go on living in this way.”

“But Miss Mortimer?” said I.

“Miss Mortimer?” cried Aunt Milly, with a little scream, that was almost hysterical, “what can my sister Sarah have to do with it? It is no harder upon her than it is upon me. If he is my father’s son, how can she be mixed up in it? And how can you and he be relations unless he is my father’s son? Don’t speak to me, Milly. He shall come here and tell it all, and at least we shall know what there is to fear.”

“But if she were too much excited it might make her ill,” said I, dreading that visit, without knowing anything to say against it.

“I can’t help it!” cried Aunt Milly, “I am desperate. Think of living and enjoying what doesn’t belong to you! Oh, Milly, Milly! what do you think I must do? I never was in secrets and mysteries before; it’s dreadful to me; and Sarah would not yield to tell what she’s kept hidden so long, not for her life. We’ll see how she looks to-night. I did not think she looked any worse than usual. I would not hurt her, you may be sure, not for any relief to myself; but we can’t go on with this hanging over us, Milly,” she said, with faltering lips. “I’ll write to-morrow; I certainly will write to-morrow. Relations! My dear, dear child, it will be a dreadful disappointment to you; but that is as good as proof.”

Poor Aunt Milly! she was desperate, as she said; and what good it would do writing, or asking, or even demanding anything, that one of the people who knew it would guard at the cost of her life, and the other would disclose only at his own time, I could not see. Luigi had refused to tell her already; he would not tell Sara Cresswell. He was waiting a permission that never, never in this world would be given. And he, too, must be deluded. What could he think our laws or our principles were if he could have any rights, but those of shame? It was all a mystery; I could see that Aunt Milly’s idea was quite a false one. But I dared not tell her that idea{329} of my own, which, perhaps, for anything I knew, might prove as false as hers.

That morning I went out with Lizzie and my boy. He could walk now along the sunny road holding my finger, and trot after his own little shadow, and try to catch the motes in the sunshine, as I suppose all babies do—but, to be sure, it is just as original and strange in every child that does it, for all that. I was walking by him, very tranquil and even contented in my mind. There had been very quiet weather; and little Harry was so well and so beautiful; and I felt so much more as if I could trust my Harry himself in God’s hands without trembling for him every moment, that my heart opened out a little to the beautiful day. I don’t know that I should have borne to see Domenico, much less to speak to him, but for that——

For there was Domenico, unmistakably, on the edge of the common. He was dressed in a white linen suit, all white, as if he wanted to make his enormous bulk and his black beard as remarkable as possible in this beardless and sober-minded country. It was warm weather now, and I daresay he thought the hot summer was coming as in his own home. Baby, with whom he had always been a favourite, gave a little shout at sight of him, and tottered forward a step or two. Of course Domenico’s hat had been in his hand from the first moment he saw me. He threw it down on the grass now, and seized little Harry, and tossed him up in his arms. I was afraid of this play, but my brave boy was not; he actually boxed at Lizzie with his little fists when I begged Domenico to set him down.

“Pardon,” said Domenico; “I—me—make demand of the signora, pardon—it pleases to the piccolo signorino beebee. I—Domenico—here—this,” said the great fellow, punching his breast, that I might be quite sure of the person he meant, “take joy in heart for see the signora another time.”

“Thank you, Domenico,” said I. “I shall never forget how kind you have been. What is it that brings you here?”

Domenico pointed round to various points of the compass, not seeming sure which to fix upon, and then burst into a great laugh at himself. “It pleases to the signora to pardon,” said Domenico; “when not to have the book not clevare to make the speak. Here is the master of me.”

“Your master, Domenico?—where?” cried I.

Once more Domenico looked round to all the points of the compass. “He here—he here—puff—Ecco!—he move far away—to make the time go. Here my master come to make{330} the visit—the signora not to know the other signora? Yes, yes; in that large big palazzo of not any colour. Behold! The my master there go.”

“Who is he going to see there?” asked I, with some anxiety.

Domenico held up his hand with many elaborate gestures of caution and silence. Then he bent his enormous person forward and stooped to my ear. When he spoke it was in a whisper. “It is need to speak silent—silent! The signora contessa,” said Domenico, with half-important, half-guilty air of one who communicates a secret. I drew back from him in utter bewilderment—what could he mean?

“There is no contessa there, Domenico,” said I, in my ordinary tone; “your master is deceived.”

Domenico held up his hand with an evident entreaty that I would be cautious. Then he looked back upon Lizzie, the only person in sight. “I not fear for the Lizzie,” said Domenico; and then launched forth into a half-whispered description of the contessa, whoever that might be. But I confess that Domenico’s description, being Italian whenever he warmed, and only when he slackened and recollected himself falling into such English as he was capable of, was difficult to make out. I fully entered into Lizzie’s feeling, that it was “awfu’ fickle to ken what he meant when it was a long story.” I remained profoundly bewildered, and unable to make out one word in ten.

As for learning anything about the contessa—poor fellow!—or, rather, it was his master that was to be pitied—evidently here was some new mistake, some additional impediment to the finding out of this mystery. I left Lizzie with little Harry on the common, and went rather sadly home. This little bit of apparent foolishness naturally set me all astray as to the mysterious business which had cost us so much thought. Was it a mistake of Domenico’s perhaps? for Luigi and Miss Mortimer had actually met, and there could be no mistake there.

When I looked back that great white apparition was keeping Lizzie company on the common. They were a strange couple; but I cannot say I had any such doubts or fears concerning Domenico’s attendance, as a proper mistress ought to have had. I flattered myself Lizzie was a great deal too young to take any harm. She stood with her red-brown hair a little blown about her eyes: her clear, sanguine complexion, her angular and still awkward figure, looking up at the man-monster beside her, and holding up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, which was{331} shining in her face. While Domenico, with all his great proportions expanded by his white dress, impended over her, his smiling mouth opening in the midst of his black beard, an outre extraordinary foreign figure, enough to drive any staid English village out of its propriety. I remember the picture they made as distinctly as possible, with the green common surrounding them, and the gorse bushes all bursting into flower; and my own beautiful baby tottering about the fragrant grass. I was quite secure in Lizzie’s love and Domenico’s kindness. I went away with a smile at the curious group upon that soft English common—both figures alien to the soil—and with a tenderness in my breast to them both. Domenico had made himself well understood in another language, if not in that of ordinary spoken communications. I shall always have a kindness to his whole nation for that good fellow’s sake.

As I paused at the gate of the Park, I saw another figure advancing by an opposite road. I recognised Luigi in a moment. He was coming hurriedly down between the green hedges, no doubt coming to pay that visit of which Domenico had warned me. I rushed in, with all the eagerness of a child, to get my bonnet off and be in the drawing-room before he came.